Current Events: Endangered Parrot!

Link: http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-parrot-identified-in-australia.html

Author: Tim Wall

A new species of endangered parrot was recently discovered! The western ground parrot split off from the eastern variety (the one familiar to scientists) about two million years ago, according to evidence. Scientists already knew about the western ground parrot's existence, but didn't realize the western and eastern varieties were different enough to be separate species, even considering that the species live on opposite ends of Australia. The scientists looked at DNA preserved in museum collections, and they found that there was more than a 5 percent variation in the DNA. Only 110 of these birds exist currently! They live essentially all in one park, so if a wildfire or some other accident occurs, then two species are wiped out at once. This could be very dangerous for the food chain and the environment of Australia, so it is important that these two species of parrot be kept safe.

I found this article to be very alarming, although also very interesting. I was surprised that scientists didn't know about these two different species before! If they did, it may have helped stop the birds from becoming endangered in the first place. What the article didn't tell me is why the species split in the first place. I would like to find out why this happened, because I think that if scientists knew why this happened they could also ensure the safety of several other endangered species!